The Boys of Senegal

I’m still doing a lot of processing about all that I saw and experienced while on this last trip to Africa. The traveling part and the team I went with were both really great, but the trip as a whole was challenging in many ways (challenging to my “Christian worldview” and “consumeristic western perspective”). Even though I’m still “unpacking” my thoughts and stories, I wanted to share some of the imagery and show some of the faces of the beautiful people I was fortunate enough to spend time with in three small remote (middle of the bush) mud-hut-filled villages in Senegal. Life in these villages is still really complicated (lots of need and many struggles), but in comparison to my way of life in San Diego, it was a breath of fresh air to slow down, simplify and just be known… not by what I have or what I do for a living.

The left image above shows the handwriting of an old man who gave me my Serere name (African Senegal name), which is pronounced Saw-nu Sang-gor… it basically means I’m a big deal in Senegal ;) It’s kind of the equivalent of being named after George Washington or Ben Franklin or some historic western figure :)

Below are a few images from an afternoon trip to Goree Island (before we boarded our plane back to the states). The small island off the coast of Senegal was said to have played a significant role in the west African slave trade (“the door of no return” below, and some cells where slaves were held for months at a time – treated like animals, bought and sold and separated from their families… heart breaking) It was intense and pretty heavy to see examples of how the slave trade operated throughout west Africa… such a dark time in history.